Tempting the taste buds - Indian and International cuisine for people who love food and cooking!!

July 7, 2008

Betty Crocker's Crescent rolls & Strawberry Preserves

The last Daring Bakers challenge had left me with a craving for Danish pastries, but thinking of the effort and the calories, I had decided to leave it alone for a few more weeks. The croissants that I came across on several blogs were haunting me in my dreams, and finally I decided to make something that atleast remotely resembled these pastries, atleast in their shapes - crescent rolls. From the day I saw this recipe on Betty Crocker's cookbook, I wanted to make them, but was too lazy and impatient when I saw the dough - rising step. But after completing the Danish Braid challenge, this wait seemed like nothing, and yes, it was a cake-walk! I made only half the recipe and everything turned out perfectly!! JM and I actually ate it as the evening snack and dinner, with homemade Strawberry jam. It sure was yummy!! With just a wee little butter in the whole recipe, we didnt cringe as we ate, and enjoyed it immensely. This recipe can be used to make dinner rolls, crescent rolls and cloverleaf rolls. The crescent rolls are given as the variation of the basic dinner roll recipe. It sure made a tasty set of rolls, please do try them, they were perfect!! Yumm!

In a large bowl, stir 2 cups of flour, the sugar, 1/4 cup of butter, salt and yeast until well-mixed.

Add warm water, warm milk and egg. Beat for a minute with an electric mixer on low-speed, followed by 1 minute on medium speed, both times scraping bowl frequently.Stir in enough remaining dough to make dough easy to handle.

Place dough on lightly floured surface.

Knead for about 5 minutes or until the dough is smooth and springy.

Grease a large bowl with shortening.

Place dough in bowl, turning dough to grease all sides.

Cover bowl loosely with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place for an hour or until the dough has doubled in size.

The dough is ready when indentation remains when touched.

At this stage the dough can be used to make any of the specified rolls.

For making crescent rolls:

Grease cookie sheet with shortening or cooking spray.

Push the fist into the dough to deflate and cut the dough in half.

Roll each half into a 12" circle on a floured surface.

Spread with softened butter.

Cut each circle into 16 wedges.

Roll up each wedge beginning at the rounded end (broad end).

Plcae rolls on the cookie sheet, with points underneath and curve the edges slightly.

Brush with butter (I didnt) and cover loosely with plastic wrap.

Let rise in a warm place about 30 minutes or until the dough has doubled in size.

Heat oven to 375 F.

Bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.

Serve warm or cool.

Tips:

I did not brush the shaped rolls with melted butter.

I only made half the recipe to yield 16 rolls.

If using self-rising flour, omit salt.

For the dough to rise, I usually switch on the oven at 200F or so for a minute or two, switch it off, and place the dough in the oven to rise.

I had actually stuffed a single roll with jam, as you can see in the picture below, to see how it would turn out. Experiment with more stuffings.

I am also sending these Crescent rolls to the "Healthy Cooking" event over at Mansi's Fun and Food. I feel that these rolls are very healthy because it has a very low fat and sugar content. It is a leavened bread and is baked so that no additional fat is introduced. The recipe actually mentioned smearing the rolls again with butter before baking. I actually omitted that step and still the rolls turned out perfectly browned. The rolls can be eaten on their own because they taste great!! It would also go well with soups, salads or preserves!!

We had the rolls with home-made strawberry preserves. The preserve was made from a recipe on Sunita's blog. Here's a pictorial step-by-step instructions on the process. We had gone strawberry picking two weeks before and I used up our hand-picked berries by making this Strawberry Preserves. I am sending this Home-made Strawberry Preserve to "Eating with the seasons" event at Maninas : Food Matters.

Through and over the weekend, I am glad some of my fellow bloggers remembered me, because I again have several awards to share. Veda of Iyengar's kitchen passed me the "Blogging with a purpose" award. Srilekha of Me and My Kitchen and Hetal of Isha's kitchen passed me the "Yum-Yum Blog" award. Thanks a trillion for remembering me, you guys! I really appreciate your gesture. I would like to pass these onto,

26 comments:

YUM! Looks perfect, not much butter either. It's not like one person eats the whole batch to get that much of fat in you at one time, right? Some dishes do haunt you, don't they? EVIL dishes!!;DI made "No knead bread" last weekend which haunted me for many months now. I thought I won't make many dishes this week, so I don't have to keep in fridge while we were gone, but couldn't resist!:DJam looks perfect too, enjoy!:)

AWESOME JZ...i was waiting for this recipe:)...jam is also too good.YUM YUM .i will definitely preapre this soon..ur photo has tempted me even more.....congrats on ur awards and thank u so much for passing me :)

delicious jz...u have been doing such yummy dishes. Have been wanting to try some baking recipes for sometime but haven't had the courage to do so. Would love to try this one. Would like to try a nice chicken filling with this. Just a bit scared as have never ventured into baking this kind of stuff due to my mental block.

Would definitely let you know when i do try it and if i have any doubts i know whom to contactnow :)

Crescent roll dough is not the easiest one to make it and very buttery... Love ur flaky croissant and jam :) U shaped it perfectly! Congrats for ur awards, u just deserve for all ur sweet treats.... Thanks to pass it JZ :)

Hey JZ:) Got to finally to see your post wit the crescent rolls:) Thats a very good write up:) And Congrats on winning the awards:) You deserve it:) yum yum blog:)I appreciate that you thought about me:) It means a lot :)Thank you!

Hey dear... u got some awesome recipes and i feel so bad.. I have been missing on them...:) loved the crescent.... its looks so lovely... and even the kajjikayalu looks mouthwatering.... yum yum... congrats on all ur awards.... while i was missing...:D u deserve every inch... hey can u tell me how do u manage to click such awesome snaps?? which cam do u have yaar and who shoots these?? u?

Thanks Srilekha, Skribles, EC and Trupti!

Thanks Vani, EC and Trupti

Thanks Trupti and Sireesha

Thanks Trupti and Sireesha!

Thanks Su and Ramya

Thanks Ramya

Thanks Ivy!

Humble beginnings!

I became a fan of cooking blogs when I came to the US because I suddenly found myself to be a home-maker with little knowledge of cooking and a lot of free time on my hands. After a couple of years and experimenting with a lot of food, I started thinking about my own blog!!! But doubting my writing skills, I have been pushing it back for some time. But with a bit of encouragement from one of my close friends and a boosting jolt from my husband, I decided not to wait any further. I hope that everybody will enjoy going through and trying out the recipes.

When I first started depending on the Internet for my cooking, I came across many wonderful recipe sites and cooking blogs!! One thing I realised is that since we are being offered a lot of different versions of a single recipe on the net, we will be more inclined to try out the recipes if we know that the recipe has passed somebody else's cooking test ! A picture of the dish will definitely go a long way to aid our decision. My objective with the blog is to post some of my original recipes along with the recipes from the net that I have chosen after trying out a few of the choices available. In the case of recipes taken from the other sites or books, the actual source will be posted along with the recipe, with the tips that I found to be useful. I sincerely hope that my blog will be a further incentive for everybody to experiment with the already popular dishes ! Please post your comments so that I can improve and evolve the blog into something which will help others who need a bit of inspiration for their cooking.